Prime Time Commemoration: an Analysis of Television Broadcasts on Israel’S Memorial Day for the Holocaust and the Heroism
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Journal of Communication ISSN 0021-9916 ORIGINAL ARTICLE Prime Time Commemoration: An Analysis of Television Broadcasts on Israel’s Memorial Day for the Holocaust and the Heroism Oren Meyers1, Eyal Zandberg2, & Motti Neiger2 1 Department of Communication, University of Haifa, Haifa 31905, Israel 2 School of Communication, Netanya Academic College, Netanya 42365, Israel This study explores the ways in which commercial media perceive and manifest their public mnemonic role. It does so via an exploration of the ‘‘memory menu’’—the contents and flow of programming—offered by Channel 2, Israel’s leading commercial television channel, on the eve of the country’s Memorial Day for the Holocaust and the Heroism (MDHH), in which the airing of commercials is banned. In order to do so, the study incorporates a multilevel analysis that probes the structure of entire broadcasting evenings as well as the narrative building blocks that constitute each item. The study investigates the ways in which commercial media outlets operate in the context of ‘‘commercial vacuums’’ as they substitute material capital with symbolic capital. This process is illuminated through Channel 2’s inability to work MDHH into its extremely successful routine broadcasting formulas. The channel’s MDHH broadcasts construct a commemorative narrative that is insulated from day-to-day Israeli public Holocaust memory discourse; hence they operate as a significant site of Israeli postmemory work. Furthermore, such a narrative not only commemorates the memory of the Holocaust itself but also the ways in which Israeli culture used to narrate the memory of the Holocaust in the past. doi:10.1111/j.1460-2466.2009.01424.x The mass media constitute the most prevalent site of collective recollection in modern national societies (Huyssen, 2000). Such media are mostly guided by commercial considerations and are increasingly embracing globalized patterns of operation (McAllister, 2003). Therefore, in recent years, media researchers as well as collective memory scholars have increasingly explored the role of mass media in processes such as the commercialization of collective memory (Loshitzky, 1997) and the development of opposing—or rather complementing—local, national, and cosmopolitan memories (Alexander, 2001; Levy & Sznaider, 2002). National commemorative days such as Israel’s Memorial Day for the Holocaust and the Heroism (MDHH) provide a rare opportunity to explore such themes, because they illuminate the role of the media in shaping the ways in which social Corresponding author: Oren Meyers; e-mail: [email protected] 456 Journal of Communication 59 (2009) 456–480 c 2009 International Communication Association Oren Meyers et al. Prime Time Commemoration groups understand their past through the years and under changing circumstances. According to Kertzer (1988), ‘‘without rites and symbols there are no nations’’; and so, ‘‘invented traditions’’ (Hobsbawm, 1983) such as MDHH emphasize the ways by which nations aim to solidify their communal identity and reinforce the value systems supposedly shared by all members of the nation. The legal prohibition on the operation of theaters, cinemas, and restaurants during MDHH drastically limits the public’s recreational choices and directs Israelis toward participation in this ritual of mass bereavement via television viewing. Despite the difficult and demanding contents of MDHH broadcasts, the average ratings achieved by Israeli television channels on the eve of MDHH1 over the years have been similar to those recorded on regular prime time evenings, in which Israeli channels feature the usual mix of news, comedies, talk shows, and reality shows.2 Thus, the ceremonies, dramas, documentaries, and newscasts aired by Israeli television channels on the MDHH offer the most heavily attended mnemonic public events of that day. The investigation of the structure and contents of the broadcasts of Channel 2, Israel’s leading commercial television outlet, on MDHH illuminates fundamental subject matters that stand at the heart of both media studies and collective memory scholarship. For many years, the broadcast version of MDHH was dominated by official-statist agents, as Israel’s television and radio outlets were all noncommercial and publicly owned. Since the beginning of the 1990s, however, Israel’s media map has changed drastically, with the introduction of cable broadcasting, two commercial television channels, and satellite broadcasting. Correspondingly, the surge in the number of commercial television outlets has moved Israeli electronic media into a globalized era in which viewers can choose between local channels that rely mostly on local programming, converted channels that give foreign channels a minimal local feel, foreign-national and global channels, and so forth (Cohen, 2005). These dramatic changes in Israel’s media landscape have brought about the question that stands at the core of this study: What are the characteristics of national commemoration rituals in a commercial media era? The construction of the Israeli memory of the Holocaust has been previously researched through its representation in various cultural arenas such as the theater, literature, and film. Interestingly, relatively few studies have focused on how the Holocaust is commemorated by Israeli press and television (Cohen, Zemach-Marom, Wilke, & Schenk, 2002; Nossek, 1994; Zuckerman, 1993), and fewer still have focused on the memory narratives offered by the mass media on MDHH (Zandberg, 2008). Therefore, this article complements existing knowledge by probing the memory narratives that are manifested through Israel’s leading television channel on MDHH. Moreover, this study focuses on Israel’s MDHH television broadcasts because they provide a stable research corpus for exploring how Israeli media have reflected and constructed the memory of the Holocaust through the years. Day-to-day Israeli media discourse is saturated with direct and indirect references to the memory of the Holocaust. However, in contrast to these omnipresent mnemonic recollections, the establishment of MDHH created a unique situation in which all Israeli media address Journal of Communication 59 (2009) 456–480 c 2009 International Communication Association 457 Prime Time Commemoration Oren Meyers et al. the memory of the Holocaust every year on the same day. This phenomenon enables us to track the diachronic development of Israeli Holocaust media memory across time, and especially since the introduction of commercial broadcasting in the 1990s. Lastly, this study offers a novel approach to the investigation of collective memory in the media: On a conceptual level, the study incorporates a multilevel exploration of televised ‘‘memory menus’’ as it probes the structure and flow of entire broadcasting evenings as well as the fundamental narrative building blocks that constitute each televised item. On a methodological level, the study implements a quantitative content analysis scheme to operationalize the main research questions. The vast majority of collective memory studies rely on qualitative methods, and when quantitative methods are used, it is mostly to survey the public (Lang & Lang, 1989; Schuman, Schwartz, & D’Arcy, 2005) rather than to explore mnemonic contents. Therefore, the design and execution of this study help illuminate, in a systematic manner, phenomena and processes that characterize the construction of social memories. The article consists of four sections. The first section presents the study’s theoretical framework via a discussion of the fundamentals of collective memory research, the role of the media as memory agents, and the development of Holocaust commemoration in Israel. The second section discusses the logic and design of the study. The third section presents its main findings and analyzes the characteristics of the memory narratives offered by Channel 2 on the eve of MDHH. Finally, the concluding section positions the study’s findings within the context of the debate over the public role of commercial media. Media, memory, and the commemoration of the Holocaust Although the term ‘‘collective memory’’ was first coined by Hugo Van Hofmannsthal in 1902 (Olick & Robbins, 1998, p. 2), French sociologist Maurice Halbwachs is usually recognized as the founder of the field and his fundamental arguments still serve as the guidelines for any collective memory study. According to Halbwachs ([1951] 1992), social groups construct their own images of the world by establishing versions of the past. Such versions define groups and enable them to create boundaries that separate them from other groups who share other memories of the past or, rather, other interpretations of the same past. Collective memory has several distinct characteristics: It is always functional (Zelizer, 1995) and thus social groups may recollect and commemorate their past in order to set a moral example or to justify failures (Sturken, 1997); collective memory might deal with abstract ideals, but in order for it to become functional it must be materialized through physical structures, commemorative rituals, and so forth (Young, 1993); and finally, commemorations of the past frequently appear in the form of narratives: The conjunction between narration and collective memory is based on the assumption that arranging the past through a narrative can justify former activities and reinforce present ones. 458 Journal of Communication 59 (2009) 456–480 c 2009 International Communication Association Oren Meyers et al. Prime Time